East, West

The call to prayer rings out as a Lamborghini roars past, hip-hop blaring. A burqa-clad woman brushes the bare shoulder of spaghetti-strapped teenager on the bus. Selfie-sticks punctuate the crowds like minarets. Istanbul’s contradictions rattle like pocket change: often unseen, always heard, there when you want to feel it — a constant collision.

The Golden Arches bridge mom and pop shops, the Starbucks Diva loiters on corners; crisp suits carrying to-go coffee hurry past old men drinking tea, flicking through their rosaries. Turkey is one of the few countries to successfully merge orthodox ideology with free-wheeling capitalism. Not without tension. Nostalgia.

Down at the docks, a group of fisherman sit in their boat, frying up the day’s catch, divvying Coca-Cola in small plastic cups. Arguing. Smoking. The captain hits me with sharp blue eyes, offering me a fish sandwich, and as the sun sets, a golden light washes down the day — the light that beckons both the history and future of both the East and the West.

6/6 in a series on Istanbul that I’m doing for @gaptogreat on the magic of Istanbul.